


Silver Dawn

by nordopolica



Series: Consort to the Divine [1]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Aftermath, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Married Life, Non-Explicit Sex, Post-Canon, Post-Timeskip (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Romance, Teacher-Student Relationship, fire emblem says gay rights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-08-19 20:26:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20215783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nordopolica/pseuds/nordopolica
Summary: Dorothea spent a good chunk of her early life searching for a noble husband, and ended up with a common-born wife she doesn't completely understand. Far out of her depth, Dorothea comes to terms with her new life at Garreg Mach and the implications of marrying into divinity.





	1. Engaged

I

Dorothea had not yet mastered the art of being in love with Byleth.

It had been such a simple thing when she was a student - back when a perhaps too-involved, unrequited crush on a teacher was in vogue.

She had occupied herself with other, more pressing matters: sparring, magic lessons, choir practice, countless dates with countless men and not a personality amongst them.  
Then came the war. That had made love and marriage easy to forget. Finding a suitable partner to take care of her was still the end-goal, yes, but it seemed such a tacky - small - thing to dwell on amidst such chaos.

So many things had happened that she hardly had the time to take stock of it all. The woman she had once had a harmless crush on became the leader of a major resistance army. She herself had been drawn into a senseless war she wanted no part of. Inadvertently, and perhaps against her better judgement, she had fallen in love. Somehow, perhaps against Byleth's better judgement, her feelings had been requited.

Now, as she woke to find her fiancee's sleeping face directly in front of hers, she couldn't help but wonder how she had ended up here. Dorothea Arnault, the street-urchin-turned-one-time-diva, in bed with the ruler of the United Kingdom of Fodlan.

  
In the time they had known each other, she had become progressively adept at reading Byleth's muted expressions. Asleep, though her face remained placid as ever, it seemed as if she took on a peacefulness that Dorothea only seldom glimpsed elsewhere. But there was always something else. Something deeper, stranger, more distant and... cosmic in Byleth's face, that Dorothea struggled to grasp. She told herself that, in time, that feeling would fade. It was just the nerves. Once they were married - once they settled into their life together, everything would fall into place.

  
Dorothea shifted onto her side, pulling the covers tighter around her shoulders. She looked into Byleth's closed eyes, searching them for reassurance. For comfort. Slowly, she moved her hand and lay it gingerly on her fiancee's chest, above the left breast, beneath which a heart might beat. But whether there was a heart there or not, it was still.

There were so many things about Byleth that Dorothea no longer understood, if ever she'd understood them in the first place.

  
She opened her eyes.

  
For a moment, Dorothea thought about snatching her hand away. A small flush crept onto her face. But instead, she simply stared into her lover's eyes - those bright green eyes, hardly even human - and waited for a reaction. Would a reaction even come?

  
Byleth blinked the sleep away languidly, then lay her hand over Dorothea's. She took it gently, squeezing with just the slightest amount of pressure so as to be comforting, and led it from her chest to the soft skin at the side of her neck, beneath her jaw.

  
A pulse.

  
No heartbeat, but a pulse.

  
Dorothea almost recoiled when she felt the shallow beat against her fingertips. Byleth offered her usual wan smile, but Dorothea could tell that there was amusement in it. She might even have laughed, were she the type.

  
"You continue to surprise me," said Dorothea, voice still croaky from sleep, "you know that?"

  
Byleth's eyebrows inclined to form a concerned ridge at the top of her nose.

  
"Don't worry, it's nothing to apologise for. Just means you'll never get boring."

  
"Was that a concern?" Byleth asked softly.

  
Dorothea mustered a warm smile."Darling, I think you're the one person in this world I can say this to." She moved her hand to cup the side of her fiancee's face, leaned in, and kissed her. "Not even remotely."

II

For some reason, and though she never meant to, Dorothea often thought back to the night Jeralt died. It only ever happened when she and Byleth were alone, and only when she could see her face.

She frequently wondered whether Byleth would ever offer a proper explanation of the appearance and power she had claimed. They had never sat down and talked it out. Secretly Dorothea had always expected that someday they would, yet as every day passed, that possibility continued to shrink.

She also wondered whether she should just come right out and ask. But Byleth was a busy woman. All day, every day, without much pause, she was engaged in matters of state and church, Seteth tailing her all the while.

Dorothea would have found it inappropriate to broach such a heavy subject in the narrow moments of peace they had together, when they wandered the monastery aimlessly, or took quiet meals before Jeralt's grave, or lay in each other's arms in the room that had once belonged to a child of the goddess Herself.

Which is why she still thought of that night, even after so many years. The picture of her young professor, hair still dark, eyes still blue, place in the world still fuzzy at best, weeping openly, was etched into her memory.

For days after they had pulled Jeralt's body out of his daughter's arms, she had locked herself in her room and cried. Even after several weeks, when Dorothea and the other students had rallied together to cheer her up, they watched their teacher choke back sobs and wipe away silent tears. It was that image that made it difficult to reconcile her now-fiancee with her schoolgirl crush.

Queen and Professor. Archbishop and ex-mercenary.

The Byleth whose arms she fell asleep in each night did not cry. Not even when she had struck down her former student, from whom she had always seemed so inseparable, had she shed a single tear.

Or maybe she had. Maybe she had suffered alone, away from Dorothea's eyes. Maybe she didn't trust her with her tears. So maybe the fact that she hadn't shared the circumstances of her newfound self - or of her birth, or of her future - was the same. Maybe she just wasn't enough.

Whenever she thought of that night a question formed on her lips, heavy but always left unsaid: "Would you cry for me?"

III

"Your mother," Dorothea finally said, as she brushed away some dirt that had lodged itself into the inscription on Jeralt's headstone. "Did you ever find out much about her?"

  
She didn't turn to see Byleth's reaction. Her fiancee was sitting, as she usually did, on a small blanket set up just before the grave. Dorothea stood, hands clapsed in front of her, perhaps to appear as if she were praying, and waited for a response.

  
"A little," came the reply.

  
"Oh?"

  
"From Jeralt's diary."

  
Dorothea turned over her shoulder, nodding. "Ah. Right. Yes, I remember."

  
"Nothing so substantial, though." A pause. "He wrote her poetry."

  
"Oh my! Jeralt the Blade-Breaker, author of love poems?" Dorothea laughed.

She stepped back and reclaimed her space on the blanket beside Byleth. A tea set lay packed up in a shallow basket just to the side. She collected it, unwrapping the over-steeped pot from its bindings, and poured them each a cup. The sweet aroma of the apple blend sprang up almost immediately to waft between them. Dorothea closed her eyes and took a deep, fulfilling sip.

  
"He only had good things to say about her," Byleth said after a moment of silence. When Dorothea turned to look at her, she saw that Byleth was staring ahead, intently, at the grave. "Which means I will never truly know her."

  
Dorothea set down her cup on its saucer and snaked her arm around Byleth's, snuggling up close to her.

  
"I imagine I must seem small to you, complaining about that."

  
"Complain all you want," said Dorothea. "I will hear it all."

  
Byleth lay her head on Dorothea's.

  
"I wonder what she was like. All the time. What made him love her," Byleth mumbled into her fiancee's hair. "What made her worthy of love."

  
"Hm?"

  
Byleth unlinked herself and reached for her tea. She shook her head as she downed the entire cup. "No matter."

  
Of course. Dorothea might have pressed for more, were it the time or place. Were it ever the time or place.

  
"I would ask if you wanted to read Jeralt's diary, but I was hoping to steal some of the poetry. For when I am away, and must write to you."

  
She smiled.

  
"Always were a lazy flirt, weren't you, Darling?"


	2. Ingrid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Ingrid Brandl Galatea comes to the monastery, Dorothea vents for the first time in a while.

IV

Ingrid Brandl Galatea came to Garreg Mach on diplomatic business during the Horsebow Moon. She had changed only imperceptibly since Dorothea last saw her at the end of the war, so she was not at all surprised when the Faerghus knight sighed exasperatedly upon being swept into her arms at the gates.

It was well known by this point, of course, that the future queen-consort was incredibly fond of her friends, and was terse only to visiting nobles and clergymen who confused her for a servant or a whore. Onlookers noted her expression, with some merchants later saying that it was the happiest they had ever seen her in public.

"Ingrid, you simply must join me for tea. I won't take no for an answer," she tutted, taking her friend by the arm.

"Dorothea! It's good to see you too..."

"Well that goes without saying! Now, come - and I won't hear a word against it!"

"Oh, no, I couldn't - "

"What did I just say?" Dorothea sighed. She turned over her shoulder at the outfit of knights and delegates trailing behind them. "I'm sure none of these fine gentlemen would object to a moment of reprieve between two old friends?"

Attaching a wink for good measure, Dorothea watched with amusement as the men in question shifted uncomfortably, shook their heads no, and scurried past into the mouth of the entrance hall, none of them able to raise a single point against the future wife of their ruler.

She turned back to Ingrid and grinned. "See?"

V

Tea parties were a hallowed pastime at the Officer's Academy, and most of its former students had carried the habit with them into the resistance army. Though she sometimes sat down with Manuela, Mercedes, Flayn, or a visiting ally, more often than not Dorothea indulged alone.

Anyone who had known her before would have said it was a strange sight, seeing her alone. Indeed, Dorothea often found herself wanting for company. She was yet to find any particularly fulfilling busywork to while away the long days at Garreg Mach, and these days the monastery seemed to her a shadow of its former self: half the friends, and twice the cruel gossip.

"They think I don't hear them, you know," she said. "Which I suppose is typical. Nobles like them think themselves so superior that whoever they don't want hearing them will simply obey on instinct."

"I'm sorry, Dorothea. I wish there was something I could do," Ingrid muttered.

"Don't be. I can handle myself just fine."

"As I well know." She laughed softly, no doubt running through memories of their time at the academy, or of the countless stories Dorothea had shared with her about Mittlefrank, or perhaps, even, of the battlefields they had conquered. "Still, it's surprising to hear that they're still so open about it. You're a war hero, and the wife of the archbishop. Have they no shame?"

"Well, I am still a commoner, after all. A low-born one at that, and don't forget an orphan! No amount of wars won will change that," said Dorothea.

"Does the Professor - er - Byleth know?"

"Oh, I won't bother her with such petty things. Well... not THOSE petty things, at least. I'm very proficient at wasting her time in other ways." She raised her cup to her lips, only to lower it without taking as much as a sip. "Besides, they're hardly better when it comes to discussing her. Apparently even being an appointed successor and the leader of a revolutionary resistance isn't enough to erase the stain of common birth."

"Don't say that," Ingrid groaned sympathetically.

"It's true. Nothing is good enough for them."

"Not that. I meant, not being able to talk to her. This is the professor we're talking about! All we did for a full year was bother her with our problems."

"And now she has all of Fodlan's problems on her shoulders," said Dorothea. She paused, then sighed. "All I've ever wanted was for someone to love me, unconditionally. To be taken care of. I feel I've achieved that, but..."

She glanced across the yard, past the old clergymen mulling over chess boards, to the open gate that led out to the avenue. Was she hoping to catch the eye of a passer-by? Check to see if the coast was clear before engaging in her mindless gossip? She asked herself the questions, and turned up no good answer.

"...Well, physically, we're very in love. No one could argue that. I don't think I'll be wanting for touch ever again."

"Dorothea!" Ingrid gasped, flushing red.

"Oh, hush, as if you don't treasure each moment with your own dear husband. But..." She shook her head. "No. No buts. We're happy. I'm happy. It's only that, sometimes, I feel a little... detached. She feels a little detached. I sometimes wonder things about her than no one is willing to tell me."

Ingrid nodded, her brow furrowed. The war had aged her, Dorothea now noticed. She had always looked troubled - weighed down by the responsibility of her fragile nobility. Now she just looked tired. All over again Dorothea started to feel as if she were just adding another burden onto yet another over-encumbered friend.

"It makes sense," said Ingrid. "To be honest, I think we all had our reservations. It all seemed to happen so fast, and none of us really got any answers. I think we accepted it because we'd won the war. Eager to forget and rebuild. Have you tried just...asking?"

Dorothea stared into the dark dregs swirling at the bottom of her teacup. "Not in so many words."

"Well, perhaps that's a place to start. The professor loves you - that much is clear. And when has she ever lied to us?"

She laughed under her breath. "You've got that right. Honest to a fault."

  
VI

"You were born in Imperial Year 1159."

Byleth had just removed her cloak and was folding it at the side of the bed when Dorothea, sitting by the window, looked up and broke the silence.

The archbishop stared blankly at her. Languidly her gaze fell to the open book in her fiancee's lap, and a small, wan smile formed on her lips. "You're reading Jeralt's diary."

"I am. The child he talks about. The one he took away from the archbishop - it's you, isn't it? The 20th of the Horsebow Moon, 1159. That's when you were born," said Dorothea. "You've always said your birthday was in the month of the Harpstring Moon."

Byleth shrugged, still smiling. She resumed the careful process of removing her robes and finery, fussing with buckles, clasps and buttons. "That's the day that Jeralt told me," she said. "It felt wrong to change it."

"And yet you chose not to tell the woman who would be your wife."

Byleth inclined her head, brows knitting. Her pale green hair shimmered in the evening light breaking through the window, lending it a ghostly glow. Dorothea sighed and shook her head.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap. I just had... an unexpectedly introspective day," she said.

They were quiet for a few heavy moments. It had occurred to Dorothea early on that while Byleth was proficient at idle chatter most of the time, she had very little to say of herself, and that if Dorothea wanted a silence filled she would have to do it herself. Right now she hardly felt like putting in the effort.

"Help me with this," Byleth finally said. She had turned so that her back was facing Dorothea, exposing the section of string along her spine that held her dress together and which, without help, she could never quite unlace.

Dorothea rose and did as she was asked, pulling the thread back through its loops until the white dress was slipping low around Byleth's bare shoulders.

"Seteth knows all about you, I'd assume," she muttered.

Another pause. "I'd assume."

"Makes one wonder why you wouldn't marry him. Surely it would be politically expedient. And think of the beautiful children."

Byleth turned abruptly. The look on her face, Dorothea recognised well. It was the most common emotion that one might've found on the dear professor's face during her war with the empire: a mixture of anger and confusion.

"I don't understand. Are we fighting? Is this a fight?"

"No," Dorothea sighed. "No. This isn't a fight." She took Byleth's hands in her own and brought them up to plant a kiss on each. "I'm just... in a mood."

"Explain the mood to me."

They sat together on the edge of the bed.

"I'm going to be honest. I'm... struggling a little," said Dorothea, and added quickly, right as she saw her fiancee's eyes widen with muted horror, " - not with you! Definitely not with you - you are perfect.

"Mostly. It's just, I feel a lot has slipped through the cracks. We rushed into this arrangement, didn't we? I love you. Nothing could change that. But we didn't exactly have a plan beyond 'get married and live out our days in bliss,' did we?

"There are so many things I've still got to learn about you. And you, about me! But I feel like I hardly know any of it."

"You know me better than anyone," Byleth murmured. Her dress had slipped below her breasts now, the fabric pooled around her stomach. Puckered scars, both new and old, revealed themselves along the toned skin of her abdomen and upper arms. Relatively speaking, their romantic relationship was still in its infancy, and it was difficult for Dorothea to keep herself from being distracted.

"In some ways, yes," said Dorothea. "In others? I - I don't even know your last name!"

"It's Eisner. But that was Jeralt's name; I never used it."

"Right. I... I actually did know that. But - well - " She scoffed and buried her face in her hands. "None of this is coming out right. I'm sorry." After a moment's pause she lifted her face again and expelled a frustrated breath. "Okay. Here's one. So, you're the queen. What happens when we get old? Will we retire? Pass your legacy onto an heir?"

Whatever light was in Byleth's ghostly eyes froze and dimmed for a sharp second.

"I don't know." She spoke softly, a raw husk creeping into her voice.

"Or what about your family? Your life before?" Dorothea raised a hand to Byleth's face. She caressed her cheek, traced her jaw with her fingertips. "The goddess."

Again the archbishop paled and froze.

"I hardly know those answers for myself," she said. There was no warmth in her words. If Dorothea was searching for comfort in her face, she found none.

Time had changed Byleth, but not enough that Dorothea could not detect a lie when she heard one.


	3. Blood

VII

Most of Byleth's day was spent in the audience chamber or its adjoining offices in the monastery, huddled over maps and missives with Seteth looming somewhere nearby.

Governing was not something she had ever seen herself doing. For twenty-one years she had been very content living in her father's shadow, doing what she was told and getting paid to do it. The life of a mercenary was messy, but fulfilling. She missed it daily. Missed him.

There were many things about her old life that she missed. She missed the band of fellow mercs that she and Jeralt once called family - the strongmen and women who doted on her tirelessly one moment, and carved up the battlefield in the next. As much as she abhorred the name, she missed the Ashen Demon and the life it had brought. She missed the slow day-to-day of being a professor. Correcting students' forms and grading their styles of swordsmanship. She missed having tea on her off-days with staff and students alike, or dining amongst them like friends. She missed Lady Rhea, and the answers she might have brought. She missed Edelgard.

But what choice did she have? This was her lot in life. The path that the goddess - that Sothis - had set her upon. There was a name she hadn't said to herself in a while. If Sothis were still here to admonish and tease her, perhaps her work would be a little more enjoyable.

" - reconstruction of the parliament building in Enbarr is going well, I hear. We should be able to resume operations out of there soon enough, all going well, and - "

"Seteth."

Seteth, frowning, looked up from his work and stared across the room at his queen.

"Yes, Lady Byleth?" he said, with just the hint of sarcasm.

"I'm not going to get old, am I?"

His eyebrows shot up; his mouth fell the slightest bit ajar. "Oh. I see we are about to have a completely different conversation."

"Dorothea asked me whether I would have an heir the other day. I'd never thought of it. But if I am like you - like Rhea - I won't age, will I?" said Byleth. Her tone, as always, was blunt and earnest. No matter how much emotion she tried to inject in her manner, it never seemed to come through.

"Well..." Seteth started. He rose to his feet and rounded the large, cluttered table to approach her. There he took a seat and crossed his arms with a sigh. "I must admit, Rhea kept me largely in the dark about her... machinations. What you know about your existence, I know. The circumstances around her birth, especially... they are hazy.

And yet, if I were to hazard a guess, I would say... yes. You will age slower than a human. Perhaps your appearance won't change for many years. Perhaps a lifetime. It was Rhea's intention that, should you take up her mantle, it would be for a span similar to her own, if not longer."

Byleth pressed her lips together. "I see."

"As for an heir... That would be up to you, I suppose. A child bearing your blood would share your longevity, but should your wife bear you children instead..."

They'd die before me, Byleth thought. All of them.

VIII

In truth, Byleth did not know what she was.

Certainly she couldn't call herself human. Perhaps once upon a time, yes. But not now. She could not even say if she was entirely herself anymore. Half-Byleth, half-Sothis, perhaps? Half-god, half-something? Was her mother somewhere in there as well - a created vessel who somehow bore a child, buried deep within the consciousness carried by her crest?

What do you call the creation of a creation? Something not entirely real, its humanity so diluted that it could not even draw a single unaided breath?

Byleth squeezed her eyes shut. Her mind was a torrent of thoughts, not one of them helpful. She wished more than anything that she could retreat upstairs to her chambers and seek silence in the arms of her wife.

Dorothea was unhappy at Garreg Mach. A nagging feeling told her this. Surely she would rather be back in Enbarr, singing her heart out on stage, than cooped up on the grounds of the monastery and the tiny town beyond. At the beginning of their engagement, when Byleth had asked her as much, Dorothea had simply told her that her place was here, with her love.

Which made it even worse, of course. It only made her think of her mother. She often wondered if Jeralt's love for Rhea's creation was warranted. What made something worth loving, after all? It was too complex a question to bother positing, and yet it occupied so much of Byleth's time.

Byleth was the archbishop and queen. She had, by definition, very little time to spend on matters of the heart. What life would she be able to give Dorothea, if she were intent on joining them at the hip?

And now, this. Longevity. Perhaps immortality. Doomed to, or blessed with, a life of impermanence. One day, relatively soon, her wife would be gone, and what sort of life would they have led, beyond the promise of eternal love? She missed the simplicity of it all, when one job would lead to the next. When Jeralt was there to tell exactly how she was feeling.

Thinking of her father now was enough to make her feel like crying. Though it had been six years since his death, it felt fresher. She could still see his face, aged and weathered, mouth curled into a sad smile. She had clutched his body and held him to her chest for what felt like hours in the rain.

Jeralt. Huh. How old was Jeralt?

IX

"I have it."

When Byleth returned to their chambers for the night, she was wide-eyed and shaky - at least, as much as she could be.

"And a good evening to you, too, my love," said Dorothea, without so much as a glance in her direction. She was already in bed, thumbing through the programme of the newest Mittlefrank production, which had been sent to her by a friend in Enbarr. It was a relatively low-budget affair, of course. Postwar funds had not flooded in to the company, but Dorothea had confidence that one day it would return to its former self. Perhaps she could attend a show sometime.

"Good evening," Byleth conceded. She rounded the bed to give Dorothea a quick kiss, then sat at the edge, her stare expectant. "I'd like to talk."

"You're not going to take that off first?" Dorothea smirked and reached up to slip the ornamental circlet off of Byleth's head. Its crystal and metal attachments jingled loudly, eliciting a small laugh from one woman and a voiceless exhale from the other. She set it aside, then smoothed Byleth's hair, her hands staying either side of her head so as to pull her in for another kiss.

"Can we talk now?"

"Yes, Darling."

"Okay," said Byleth. "You asked me about the goddess. About what happened with her. What made me what I am."

Dorotha's mouth clamped shut, and she perked up.

"I told you, many years ago, what happened. The goddess gave me her power to save me that night. She had always been with me, since I was born. It is how I came to be. Why I came to be. But that night we became as one." Byleth shifted in place on the bed, visibly discomfited by her own words. "You were right to say that I had become distant."

Dorothea frowned. "I don't remember saying that."

"You did. You said it to me downstairs, the week after I received my changes. I was hurt, at the time. But you were right."

Byleth smiled. It was not her usual, pale affair, the one that you needed to read into to understand. No, the emotion in this smile was plain enough for anyone to see. It was wistful. Sad. Her heavy stare fell into her lap.

"I am... different. I know that you know this - you've felt my heart, after all. But since that night I have realised something. I am more different than either of us thought. I fear I have become something... other.

That night, I felt emotion more powerfully than I had ever before, and at the same time I felt... nothing. I can't exactly explain it. It's like..."

"...The benevolence of a goddess," Dorothea finished under her breath.

Byleth said nothing for several moments. It was uncharacteristic of her not to make eye contact; instead her gaze wandered the walls and furniture, desperately grasping for purchase.

"I don't want to lose you."

"Oh, Darling," Dorothea breathed. She slid up closer to her fiancee, taking her into her arms. The metal of the archbishop's regalia poked into parts of her bare skin, but she paid it no mind. "You won't."

Byleth slid out of Dorothea's grasp and looked at her with renewed resolve. "But I will. Eventually." Abruptly, she clasped Dorothea's hands in hers and held them tightly to her chest. "Unless... we have a choice."

Dorothea frowned.

"I know there are still many questions I've yet to answer. As to those, I would ask your patience," said Byleth. "But, what I'm asking, right now, is if there was a chance that you and I could live for a very long time together, would you choose to?"

"Isn't that already on the cards? Well, I had no idea you thought me so disposable - "

"I'm not kidding. When Alois met Jeralt, over thirty years ago, he said he looked just as old as the day he died. It was because of Rhea. Because he'd been gifted her blood."


	4. Life

X

They would be married in the Guardian Moon, it was decided. Neither Dorothea nor Byleth had much say in the matter, which was decided en masse by a council of the highest-ranking remaining clergymen.

Dorothea might have thought the prospect of finally having a wedding date in sight exciting, had she not chosen that same date as a deadline of sorts. Though Byleth had been clear that she did not have to make up her mind soon, Dorothea needed to sort herself out. She had a lot to think over. Since their conversation not two weeks before, she and Byleth had been outwardly affectionate, but hidden beneath the surface lay many things unsaid. Uncertain.

She had always pictured that she and her wife would grow old together. It was the basis upon which she had built her idea of married life, after all. That she would find a spouse who would love her even upon losing her voice, her youth, her beauty; that she would die having left a legacy of love and affection and children who took care of her and missed her when she was gone.

She had wanted that with Byleth. And now, she learned, that was impossible. Byleth would not grow old as she did. Dorothea would be an old woman, stooped and unsteady, and her wife would still look as young and radiant as she did today. What would people say when they saw them together, looking like grandmother and grandchild? Would they snicker? Gossip? Well. That was hardly different from how it was now.

By the end of her life, Dorothea would simply be a single thread in the vast tapestry of Byleth’s memory. After her death, her wife would move on, and move on again, and forget the first hundred or so years of her life as if they had never happened. She might have promised eternal love now, but nothing, Dorothea knew, ever lasted that long. 

And what of the alternative? Were she to accept Byleth’s blood - the blood of the goddess incarnate - and were it to work, she, too, would live a long time. Perhaps not as long as her love, but still a considerable span. They would be married, and live side-by-side for hundreds of years, and watch their friends and their children die, and have more children, and watch those die too, and never grow old, and never die. Byleth would get bored of her, and fall out of love somewhere around the five-hundred-year mark. Go their separate ways. Be alone again.

Perhaps she would never lose her beauty. Perhaps she could go on singing in the opera forever. Was that the life she wanted?

XI

The day approached faster than Dorothea could have ever imagined. On the fourth night of the Ethereal Moon she was fitted for her dress, a tightly-tailored white gown fitted with deep blue accoutrement. She had known that the church preferred its image to be homogenous, but this was going too far. At this rate she wouldn’t have been surprised if she showed up to the altar to find that both she and Byleth were wearing the same thing. At least the jewelry they had allowed her to try on was sufficiently fashionable. She wondered whose hands the rings, necklaces and earrings that she had tried on that day had passed through across history.

But Dorothea had, of course, thought a lot about the offer in the past few months. She dared not mention it to anyone else - not even their former comrades - and while stewing in her impending decision she had allowed her excitement for the festivities at hand to dull.

For as much as she loved being the centre of attention, she could not think of anything worse in this moment than getting up on a dais, watched by hundreds of faces she did not know or like, ushering in a future she couldn’t quite wrap her head around. Some, not all, of her former classmates and comrades would be in attendance. The thought of searching for their faces in the crowd, perhaps seeing a stray smile, was only a small comfort.

It was time to sort this out.

XII

Byleth was at her parents’ grave in the evening. Dorothea spotted her from the balcony, and descended the steps to slowly approach her.

Before she reached her, Byleth turned over her shoulder and flashed a small, ashen smile. Since their discussion, she had returned to a state of relative silence, speaking only in short, concise sentences, and usually only when prompted. It was as if she had used up the last of some hidden reserve when she bared her soul that night.

“Aren’t you cold out here?” Dorothea asked, to which Byleth shook her head. Dorothea came up beside her and wrapped her arms around her shoulders regardless, sharing the warmth of her coat. Garreg Mach scarcely saw snow at this time of year, but even so the late-year nights were frigid and biting.

There was silence for a few minutes. Dorothea studied the headstone of her soon-to-be in-laws; Jeralt and the unknown mother, unnamed, unremembered. Her memory lost with the death of her long-lived husband. A fresh pair of intertwined flowers lay atop the grave - at this point it seemed impossible that one might ever see a withered blossom there.

“After we are married, I would like to return to Enbarr, to Mittlefrank,” Dorothea said softly. “It won’t be for long. Perhaps you could join me when the restorations are complete. You could sit in the audience and know that the star diva on stage is singing only to you.”

Byleth turned her head, but whatever emotion her expression might have betrayed was lost to Dorothea, who stared ahead.

“I love you. I don’t… completely understand you sometimes. Maybe at one time I did,” she breathed, “but I think that’s okay.” She met Byleth’s flat gaze. Their faces were close, and Dorothea fought the urge to kiss her right then. “I’m getting better every day at knowing and loving you.”

Byleth smiled again. 

“Now, I think you understand me pretty well already. I certainly don’t give you enough credit for that,” said Dorothea. “You probably thought that I would be over the moon about your offer, right? You remembered me saying how scared I was of growing old. You probably thought that, if we had more time together, then it’d be easier for both of us to live our lives without worrying about time running out. Duty, honour, desire. Those things wouldn’t matter as much. Am I right so far?”

Byleth paused, her lips having faded to a tight line. She nodded. 

“So even the goddess has something left to learn.” Dorothea slipped her hands from around Byleth’s shoulder and instead linked their arms, as if they were about to walk together. “I’m not afraid of growing old. Well. Maybe a little. But even more than that, I’m afraid of being left alone. Of dying, never having been loved. Of having love and losing it.”

Byleth shook her head. “I won’t let that happen.”

“You say that. I even know you mean it. But I can’t just count on a promise of forever,” she muttered. Her mouth curled into a wry smile, and suddenly she felt tears well up in her eyes. She wasn’t exactly sure why. “At least, not right now.”

She expelled a lengthy sigh that manifested in a puff of frost before her, and was carried off by a frigid breeze.

“Someday at the end of my life I’ll die a wrinkled old lady, and you’ll still be as beautiful as you are now, and when that happens all I can do is hope that I made you love me enough to still want to be beside me.”

“You’ll always be beautiful to me,” Byleth said. Her tone was not entirely convincing, but when Dorothea again looked into her eyes she saw no trace of deceit. She truly did believe that, didn’t she?

“Of course. You’re a strange person, after all. But perhaps that’s the prerogative of the divine. Just one more thing I hope to understand one day.” Dorothea turned back to the grave and looked beyond it, over the balcony, to the cliffs that plunged from the monastery’s aged form. 

Winter mist hung about the valley, and night had drawn a sheer curtain over the spires of Garreg Mach, but in places where torch flames burned bright, illuminating the battlements and ivy-crawling walls, it was a beautiful sight to behold. It was the sort of beauty that background painters would spent months trying to capture for the opera. It made one want to burst into song.

It was Byleth who broke the silence that ensued between them. “I don’t want to lose you.”

“Nor I you! But I’m pretty sure most couples don’t sit around thinking about the day when one of them must die,” said Dorothea. “One day, perhaps when my looks start to fade, or you start to grow tired of my voice, I will be in need of your blood. Something to make me a little more interesting, perhaps. For now, I simply want to plan for the immediate future. Like… what I’ll wear when you come see me backstage, or how long I want to wait until we have children, or what I’d like to do to you on our wedding night.” 

Byleth only looked at her blankly.

“Oh, there’s still no teasing you, is there?”

In that moment, they shared a deep, tender kiss. They held each other tight, trapping the warmth between them, neither caring what might be thought should someone happen upon them. When they parted, it was only reluctantly.

And all I can hope, Dorothea thought to herself, is that I make whatever time we have together worth remembering for many, many years afterward. 

“I feel as though I’m not worth you sometimes,” said Byleth. 

Dorothea laughed, then sighed. Her voice cut through the silence of the night so sharply that she almost startled herself. “Because we’re both idiots, apparently. Look at us, worrying about what the other thinks of us. Whether we’re worthy. When did we allow ourselves to get so insecure?”

Byleth nodded. Dorothea might even have heard a huff of voiceless laughter. “I suppose circumstances change us.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh whats that? you wanted 4 chapters in less than as many days? no? well too bad heres this crap


	5. Warmth

XIII

The wedding of the archbishop-queen of Fodlan and her common-born consort fell on a brisk, ominously misty day at the tail end of the Guardian Moon. Dorothea’s dress, to which she had requested some small alterations that tastefully accentuated her strongest assets, was hardly enough to brace against the unexpected cold front. She walked down the aisle wrapped in the last-minute addition of a flowing coat in the colours of the church. 

As she had expected, she was watched closely all the while by the disapproving leers of high-ranking clergymen and visiting nobility. These were the people who would have much preferred her wife, their ruler, to have chosen one amongst their flock - preferably of high birth and title, preferably devout, and preferably a man. For the first time in many years, Dorothea was content to ignore them. That day, she did not need their approval.

The sea of unfamiliar faces was cut, of course, by ripples of old schoolmates, comrades, friends, mentors. A few former songstresses from Mittlefrank whom she had so admired in her day now looked on at her from the masses with utter adoration. Behind them, far in the back behind the cathedral pews, were the common people. The monastery had opened its gates once more to the public, and they had obliged with gusto.

A wedding in the Church of Seiros was unlike any she had ever attended. The ceremony was rigid, mechanical, and deathly quiet between hymns. When, at the end of the service, Dorothea reached out and took her now-wife by the hands, the action was perceived as so bold that she could have sworn she heard a wave of quiet gasps skitter through the crowd.

The reception came next, which would surely have been an equally tight affair had Dorothea not whisked Byleth away to the corner where their schoolmates had gathered, exchanging pleasantries and stories, catching up on all that had happened in their short time apart. Within their small group of former-generals there had been engagements, and the promises of engagements, and knighthoods, and titles, and journeys.

Dorothea danced with the friends who had traveled such a long way to be here, whispering advice in their ear, laughing about mindless gossip. She watched as Byleth was swept into waltzes of her own, both voluntarily and reluctantly. She herself was even coerced into dancing with a daring noble or ten. After Byleth caught sight of her on the dancefloor with a smitten young lord of House Daphnel, she remarked with her small smile: “I might have to start bringing you along to my meetings.”

Her wife was an imperceptible as always as the night drew on. She did not know what to expect of their time alone until they had said their farewells and retired to their chambers, whereupon she was surprised by Byleth’s abrupt enthusiasm.

They made love as they never had before that night. Byleth had always been the type to pay attention to detail, and had even admitted to Dorothea that, well before their first sexual encounter, and having never slept with a woman before, she had found herself in the library, researching how best to go about it. But what she had gained in practical knowledge she had always lacked somewhat in passion. Tonight she made up for that tenfold. Whatever cold had gripped Garreg Mach was lost to their chambers, beneath their sheets, between the warmth of their bodies.

Afterward, as they lay in each other’s arms, they spoke softly of their future. They spoke of Dorothea’s impending trip to Enbarr - about how not everyone in the former Imperial capital would be so welcoming, and about how Dorothea had proven time and again that she could very well handle herself… though a small security detail might not hurt.

When the topic leaned further and further toward ‘too heavy,’ Dorothea steered them back into the light side of things. She spoke of how, when they could no longer bear to be apart, she would return to Garreg Mach and make a housewife of herself. Byleth had, just so slightly, cocked an eyebrow, before Dorothea offered an alternative: that maybe she might settle into a more active role here. That maybe she could do some good.

She spoke of her desire to have children, the logistics of which they would discuss sometime later. Perhaps they would adopt from the orphans who the Church had taken - and would continue to take, so long as there were children left wanting for a home - in. Perhaps they would find a disposable man to make himself useful for a night (a tease that went, again, unreacted to). Perhaps they would do both.

All of these things they could and would do in their time together. They would not think of the end - not yet. Or they would try.

Early in the morning, as Dorothea finally drifted off to sleep in Byleth’s arms, the archbishop stared up at the ceiling and lost herself to her thoughts. She thought of a conversation that she and Seteth had had prior to the wedding. He and Flayn were perhaps the only people in the world who would understand, after all, the pain that she had - tentatively, at least - committed her future to.

She thought of Seteth’s face, then. His expression had held traces of hurt, and melancholy, and, faintly, joy. 

“There are no guarantees in this world, Professor,” he had said. Even after all these years, the title had stuck. She did not hate it. “When one entertains mortality, one must learn to play by its rules. All we can do is pray, when all is said and done, that we have been enough.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well folks thats where im gonna end this. thanks to all you super people for reading my first "fan fiction" in probably 7+ years. i will probably add side stories and stupid dorothea/byleth fluff to this series so i hope you enjoy that when it comes thaaaaanks


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